Senate Bill Would Give President Obama Authority to Pull the Plug on Your Internet

Posted by: Dr. Mercola
October 20 2009 | 628 views
Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.

CNET News has obtained a summary of a proposal from Senators Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) that would create an Office of the National Cybersecurity Advisor, part of the Executive Office of the President. That office would receive the power to disconnect, if it believes they're at risk of a cyberattack, "critical" computer networks from the Internet.

“I regard this as a profoundly and deeply troubling problem to which we are not paying much attention," Rockefeller said a hearing this week, referring to cybersecurity.

Senate bill 773 (The Cybersecurity Act of 2009) is causing a flurry of opposition from folks like Campaign for Liberty, who has sent out letters to their members appealing for them to take action against passage of this bill, stating:

“If the ‘Internet Takeover Bill’ passes, Barack Obama can silence his dissenters directly—by ordering a shutdown of all Americans’ access to the Internet. But that’s not all. Even outside of periods of White House-declared ‘emergency,’ this bill mandates that private-sector networks only be managed by government-licensed cybersecurity professionals.”

  CNET News August 28, 2009

  Campaign for Liberty